The first conference victory is at stake as the Men’s Lacrosse team travels to RPI this weekend.
The St. Lawrence Men’s lacrosse team took on the likes of the Vassar College Brewers and the Ithaca Bombers over the weekend. In the first contest, the Saints were defeated by Vassar College 5-4 and then followed Saturday’s loss with a 9-5 win over the Bombers. With the loss to Liberty League conference foe Vassar, the Saints desperately need other contending Liberty League teams to lose as well as gaining critical wins over RPI and Hamilton in order to qualify for the Liberty League Tournament.
On Saturday, the Saints and the Brewers faced off against each other on a rain soaked afternoon at North Country Field. The story of the day was Vassar’s goaltender Andrew Nicol tenacious play. Nicol shut down St. Lawrence with 11 saves while only yielding 4 goals. Besides being outplayed in goaltending and offensive efficiency, the Saints had dominated the Brewers in every major statistical category. The Saints had owned a wide 30-16 margin in shots, won 7-of-13 face-offs, won the ground ball battle 27-25, and forced 31 turnovers.
55 seconds within the start of the game, St. Lawrence midfielder Tucker Garfield ‘13 would score the first goal to give the Saints a early 1-0 lead. Goals like this would be harder to come by as the Vassar College defense picked up its intensity to only allow a single goal in the first half. Vassar led the Saints 2-1 heading into halftime.
In the fourth quarter, the Saints responded to the Vassar lead with 3 consecutive goals to place themselves ahead of the Brewers 4-3. The Saints scoring surge was led by junior captain Caldwell Rohrbach and other fellow juniors Matt Pope and Drake Paul.
However, Vassar was able to separate themselves from St. Lawrence as Vassar’s Ryan McCarthy netted the game-winning goal with 2:31 remaining in the final quarter to earn the 5-4 win.
The next day, the men’s lacrosse team was able to recover from Saturday’s loss to earn a 9-5 victory over foe Ithaca due to a little bit of extra motivation as sophomore sensation Cam Scullen puts it, “Our team was still looking to find that 60 minute game and we came out against Ithaca today and did just that winning 9-5.” St. Lawrence was able to win in large part due to a stellar performance by Caldwell Rohrbach ’12 which included 3 goals and 1 assist.
Ithaca possessed a 2-0 lead after the first quarter of play. The Saints countered back in the second quarter with a 3 goal-scoring surge led by Kyle Jacobsen ’12, Tucker Garfield ’13, and Rohrbach ’12 to take a 3-2 lead. Ithaca answered back by tying the game up 3-3 right before heading into intermission.
Following intermission, the Bombers were able to regain the lead in the third quarter. However, it would be the last lead the Bombers would have for the rest of the game. The Saints would launch an arsenal of goals that included scoring 5 consecutive goals to take full grasp of the game. Leading this scoring attack was Rohrbach ’12, Pope ’12, Garfield ’13, and Ingram ’13.
With its schedule winding down and in a desperate situation, the men’s lacrosse team still remains optimistic says Cam Scullen ’13, “We have had our ups and downs but we have never stopped fighting. We are determined to find our feet and we did just that this Sunday and we look forward to doing the same with our few remaining games.”
